Let’s chat about how amazing this Roasted Carrots and Beets recipe is! You will move this right into your regular cooking rotation. These roasted veggies are done in just 25 minutes so they are a perfect for busy weeknights.
While visiting a local Trader Joe’s last weekend, we passed by a bag of the most gorgeous multi colored carrots for only $1.89. I seriously would love to know how they do it. Fresh, varied produce at such an affordable price wins me over every time!
🍴 Ingredients
This is almost the easiest side dish you will ever make. It tastes like you stopped at a famous restaurant and picked it up – just to impress your friends. It is seriously so good that you will want to use this technique with other vegetables as well.
Golden Beets: Chop them up in uniform shapes so they cook evenly. You are in for a real treat! They tend to be a little less sweet than the red beets but have a great earthy flavor.
Carrots: The natural sweetness in the carrots paired with the beets is insanely good. The multi colored varieties are no different. They are sweet and wonderful, which is probably why they tend to be children’s favorite vegetable.
Rosemary: I love adding some fresh rosemary. It brings out the flavors of the carrots and beets and adds some color too. The earthy flavor of the beets, carrots and rosemary are a perfect match.
🥕 Instructions
Step One: Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Mix the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, rosemary and sea salt together in a Ziploc bag or bowl. I gravitate to using Ziploc bags, but I know that if I’m not careful, the price can add up! For better cost savings, use a bowl to mix the ingredients together.
Step Two: Peel the carrots (or if you like, leave the peels on for extra nutrients!) and toss with the olive oil/balsamic mixture. Spread them out on a sheet pan. Place in the oven for 20 minutes at 425 degrees. Check on them half way through and toss when the bottoms start to brown.
📌 Tips
- Use Coarse Ground Sea Salt. Sea salt really adds flavor that complements the tangy balsamic vinegar! If you don’t have any, go for table salt, but only sprinkle on a little bit. You can always add more but you can never take it away!
- Use Baby Carrots if you can’t find the organic ones. Dry off the bagged baby carrots as they hold so much moisture that the olive oil/rosemary mixture will not stick to them well.
- Add Other Vegetables to Roast. This recipe works deliciously tossed with parsnips, rutabaga, turnips, potatoes, or any other root vegetable. Just make sure the pieces are cut equal size so they cook at the same pace.
- Add Golden Beets. We are used to cooking with the dark red beets, but it is fun to mix it up and add in some golden beets. I can’t taste the difference, but it adds a neat color variation for the presentation.
🧅 Variations
There are so many way to modify this recipe by changing up the ingredients that are mixed with the vegetables. Here are four ways to get you started:
- Sweet Balsamic Roasted Carrots and Beets – Toss the vegetables with two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar and brown sugar or honey. This is a sweet, tangy flavor that goes so well with roasted vegetables.
- Citrus Balsamic Roasted Carrots and Beets -Toss the vegetables with two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, brown sugar and orange or lemon juice. Add some lemon zest to the mixture if you have some on hand. This produces a completely different flavor by adding just one additional ingredient.
- Honey Orange Roasted Carrots and Beets – Toss the vegetables with two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, honey and orange juice.
- Herb Roasted Carrots and Beets – Toss the carrots with two tablespoons of olive oil, crushed garlic, and herbs de provence.
Let me know how you like this recipe, and pin it to your boards for future reference. It is great for a fast evening meal.
❗ Expert Tips
If you want to cut out some oil but are afraid of the vegetables sticking, line the sheet pan with parchment paper and they will come right off. Parchment paper is better than foil for getting a true non stick result.
Cut the vegetables the same size or some will cook faster than others. If you don’t, you’ll have some chewy and overdone with some that are not done yet.
Recipe FAQ
When you put vegetables in the oven to roast, they will caramelize. I don’t know about you, but I think that roasting them tastes a lot better than simply steaming. They are also sweeter after being roasted! Anytime you get more vegetables in your system, the better.
Roasting vegetables is a huge time saver! We all could use opportunities where we can get something else done!
If you choose to dry roast the vegetables with no oil, you will bring down the caloric content of the dish a bit. You may lose a little bit of flavor, but once you try it a couple times, it is easy to get used to. Try cutting back on the oil a little at a time until you are roasting with no oil at all. Take a couple of weeks to work through this and you will be pleasantly surprised with the results! Of course, the oil also helps prevent sticking.
There are a couple of reasons that could cause this. Don’t crowd the vegetables. You’ll notice in the photos that they are spread apart, if they are too close, they will act more like steaming rather than roasting. You could have used too much oil or your oven temperature is too low.
No, if you do this it will create steam and they will not roast. You won’t achieve the toasty brown outside you are looking for.
The best oil to use when roasting vegetables is olive oil. It is the preferred oil for roasting anything over 400 degrees.
🍅 Related Recipes
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Roasted Beets and Carrots Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 Golden Beets chopped
- 4 Carrots chopped
- 2 tbsp Olive Oil
- 1 tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
- 1 tsp Sea Salt
- 1 tsp Rosemary fresh
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
- Combine the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and rosemary in a small bowl and whisk together.
- Chop the beets and carrots. Toss with the olive oil mixture and spread out not a sheet pan.
- Roast beets and carrots for 20 minutes. I prefer to check them 10-15 minutes in and gently toss them so that more than one side gets toasty.
Notes
Nutrition
I made this last night, and the cooking time ended up being 3x what was suggested in this recipe. It would be helpful if you specified what size the chopped beets should be – small dice? 1/2 inch? Also there is a discrepancy in the oven temp listed – the recipe says 400, but earlier in the intro it says 425. I think it would have worked better with the higher temp.
Oh Julia, I’m so sorry to hear this. We make roasted veggies all the time and love the 20 minute mark. Ours are like shown in the photo so they are a little brown on the outside and tender but not at all mushy on the inside. Now, I will fix the temp so thank you so much for seeing that. My best to you-Ginny